private tutor newmarket | Tutor My Kids

What is it that we do that is so very different?

Well I think, as ever, it’s rarely one thing, but a combination of several things which together form something quite incredible.

We’re small and local

Founded in 2011 by Rachel Law, a teacher and mum, we’re based in Ely, Cambridgeshire.

We know all our tutors personally, so we know their background and experience. We know what they’re good at and what they’re really great at! We talk with them regularly and we’re one big team.

Our tutors are amazing

We have amazing tutors. We are pretty picky – with a few exceptions, all our tutors are qualified teachers. Teachers have the curriculum experience and years of experience to understand how to get that information across to students with a huge variety of different learning styles. It’s what teachers do day in, day out; it’s our stock in trade.

Our teachers have the academic underpinning and understanding to know which learning blocks build information and how to rebuild the missing ones.

If you’re a teacher who’d like to find out about Becoming a Tutor My Kids tutor, click the link, email Rachel or call Rachel Law on 01223 646421 for a friendly and informal chat.

Our clients are amazing

We have great clients who simply want to give their children more confidence in their learning. We’re blessed with appreciative clients who are generous enough to recommend us to their friends, colleagues and family.

For more information about Tutor My Kids or private tuition in Cambridgeshire, please click the links.

For us, it’s personal

Rachel visits all our clients in their home to ensure that we understand what is needed academically, but also to get a feel for how the student learns and which tutors would be the best fit for your family and child. Rachel also interviews all our teachers personally, face-to-face. We feel that the personality fit between tutor and student is equally important. As a primary school teacher, Rachel is also able to assess many of our students to understand where their strengths lie and discover areas where we can help to improve understanding and confidence.

We’re joined-up

With our clients permission, we liaise with the student’s class or subject teacher to supplement the information from the initial assessment. Our clients are invariably hugely supportive of their child’s teachers, but just feel that the teacher can’t devote the one-to-one time to their child that they’d like. Many parents worry that the teacher may be ‘put out’ if they get a tutor. This couldn’t be further from the truth; all teachers want the best for all their pupils and almost without exception are just delighted that the pupil is getting some extra help to support them.

We stay in touch

Our tutors feedback to our parents after each session to explain how it’s gone – what’s been good, what needs more work etc. In addition, Rachel stays in touch with our parents and tutors too throughout the tutoring, to ensure that it’s all going to plan and helping out with any issues or concerns.

We love seeing great results

We’re all hard-wired to love seeing great results from the tuition – it’s one of Rachel’s greatest joys – The best bit of my job! We just love helping people to thrive and giving kids confidence.

We’re positive

All our teachers are positive, upbeat people who bring a ray of light with them. They’re a joy to have around and without doubt this rubs off on to our pupils and their families.

What makes us brilliant?

So, I think it’s being small enough to know our tutors and clients well, having amazing, positive teachers who bring a rush of energy and positivity with them. It’s joining up with schools so we have the fullness picture we can of the student’s needs, keeping our clients up to date with progress and loving seeing kids learn, thrive and gain confidence. And feeding back to our parents.

At first glance, it might look like pushy parenting, but it’s easy to forget stuff!

We all forget things if we don’t do them regularly. Can you remember passwords for websites that you rarely use – no me neither! PIN numbers for accounts you don’t use very often – yep guilty!

Kids are no different, they forget things.

It’s long been recognised by teachers that kids learning can take a backward step over the summer holidays, but is this true or an urban myth? Take a look at the research.

Many of our teachers who work as private tutors in Ely and Cambridge area report that without repetition children can forget things that they’ve learnt the prior to the holidays. Many of our private tutors work through the school summer holidays to keep the children’s learning active over the holiday.

I teach a day a week at a local school in the Ely area. The year before last, I kept the same class as they went up a year. (They left me in August as year 3s and re-joined me as year 4s in Sept). I was quite surprised by how much they had forgotten from the end of July to Sept. It’s rare you get the opportunity to experience the effect so directly. Hardly surprising when there’s so much going on in the holidays. All those ice-creams to be eaten, friends to see and places to visit.

Does it really matter?

For many kids it doesn’t matter that they forget things because topics will be covered again in the next academic year. The education system is designed to allow for this. Also, you’ll most likely be reading with them or they can read independently and they’ll be experiencing other things whilst on holiday or out for day trips

What are the problems with this?

With increased focus on covering more topics in the curriculum, it does mean that it can be at a pace which is too quick for some children.

For many kids little and often work well to keep ideas fresh. High degrees of repetition help to keep ideas and way to solve problems front of mind. Our tutors in Ely, Huntingdon and Cambridge, are aware of this and generally plan to repeat areas to ensure retention.

Shouldn’t kids have a rest in the holidays.

Absolutely! Kids should have downtime to chill, be a bit bored and enjoy time with family and friends. I think our children do need to have this time to relax and recuperate. In fact, I’d recommend not planning too many organised events so kids can make up their own play, games and do all that lovely old fashioned stuff like building dens in the garden. Limit screen time and get them outdoors.

But, the two aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s still possible to do this and incorporate 4-6 hours tuition over the WHOLE of the summer holidays, a 1 hour, weekly session without impinging on this time.

Do I need a tutor? Can I do it myself?

At Tutor My Kids our tutors are qualified teachers, which we feel is important, especially at primary level, because the ways in which maths and English are taught in school is entirely different to the ways in which most parents were taught.

However, there are things you can do to help your own kids, without question. The main things are to read with your kids regularly, practise handwriting, play some maths games and get them to write a journal, diary or letters to keep these skills up. Take a look at our news to see various blogs on how to help your kids learn.